Friday, March 18, 2011

I am a forgiving person by nature. Holding a grudge feels unnatural to me. It’s always seemed like way more effort to maintain animosity towards someone. This isn’t to say that trespasses forgiven are also forgotten, or that if I’ve been wronged by someone that I’m quick to let them back into my good graces, but I’m certainly willing to accept an apology and get on with it.

There are few facets of daily life in which I am more forgiving and understanding than the service industry. I’ve worked enough customer service jobs and have run across enough asshole customers that I am almost entirely empathetic with wait staff, bartenders, delivery drivers, operators, etc. These jobs are not the most fun or pleasant occupations. People expect pizza to be there as soon as the phone is hung up, they want to be the first served at the bar, and they want their problems fixed immediately despite the fact that it can’t be done, or that it can, just not by you and yelling isn’t going to make things happen faster. I get it. Believe me, I do.

And so it is extremely difficult for me to say this, but our service at XYZ the Tavern last night sucked. Worse than that if fucking blew. But more accurately it just wasn’t there. Bad service would’ve been an improvement and something that might is forgivable, but no service is completely and utterly impossible to ignore.

Now, quick readers will note the dates. Today is March 18, which means last night was… St. Patrick’s Day, one of the busiest bar days on the books. We knew that going into our evening out. We expected the bar to busy, it was, and the tables to be full, they were. But the staff, accommodating at first, cleared and cleaned the first available table. Brought us water even. And then…

Nothing.

Well, once I finished the little bit of beer I had left from the round we ordered at the bar while waiting it was bussed, but other than the busboy, I don’t think anyone noticed we were there.

But it was St. Patrick’s Day, be patient! We were. Very much so. Watching waiters and waitresses constantly pass by, delivering menus, drink, even food to every single table around us. Yeah, we had a menu, but we’d picked one off the bar when we came in. Certainly no one had brought one to the table. So we waited. And watched. And grew hungry and impatient until finally we left.

Do you know how many times I’ve done that? None. Never. Even at places where I’ve received terrible, slow, indifferent service I’ve never just left. And we tried and tried to justify this awful service, but as we could plainly see every one around us enjoying at least some attention from the servers we really couldn’t find a good reason to be treated so poorly.

It’s really difficult for me to write a bad review of anything, but there is no way I can find anything even remotely positive to say about XYZ the Tavern. And were the service merely poor or the food bad I might’ve been willing to try again someday in the future, but I can’t imagine a circumstance in which I would be willing to try eating there again. I’m not saying never, what I am saying is: really unfuckinglikely. And it pains me to say this as well, but this experience was so bad that it will be a while before I go back to ABC.